


Dreaming Out Loud

by spargelkohl



Category: New Girl (TV 2011)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Bisexual Nick Miller, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Multi, Pansexual Schmidt, Romance, Sex, oh whatever theyre all queer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:41:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29654937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spargelkohl/pseuds/spargelkohl
Summary: Cece's wedding happened, she's married to Shivrang now. Jess and Nick didn't work out either. To comfort each other, Nick and Schmidt try something unconventional.
Relationships: Cece Parekh/Schmidt (New Girl), Jessica Day/Nick Miller, Nick Miller/Schmidt (New Girl)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	1. wedding night

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a few years late to the party, but here I am!  
> Enjoy!

„Schmidt?“

As quiet as humanly possible, Nick pushed the door to his best friends bedroom open. He has been on his way to the kitchen to get some water after trying to fall asleep for what felt like hours, when he heard muffled noises out of Schmidt’s room.

„Oh boy.“

He closed the door behind him and tried to find his way to the bed without stumbling over anything. It has been a trying day for both of them– Cece’s wedding. She now had a whole new life ahead of her with Shivrang. Schmidt had used the day to convince everybody that he was awfully okay with Cece’s choice, but now there he was, lying on his bed, still dressed in his second best suit (he saved the best one for the day Cece would decide to leave Shivrang to be with him), crying into his already soaked pillow.

Nicks day didn’t go as planned either. After hooking up with Jess and trying to figure out their relationship, she finally made up her mind and basically dumped him. But that, at least in this moment, was less important to him than his best friend.

He carefully placed one hand on Schmidt’s shoulder. Nick hated physical affection, but after being friends with Schmidt for over a decade, he knew how to calm him down.  
And indeed his breathing got slower, less rapid, and for a moment Nick thought he already fell asleep, when he heard a quiet „Thank you“. The corners of Nicks mouth twitched slightly in an upwards direction while he tried to resist the urge to wipe the tears off his best friend’s face.

„Schmidty“, he whispered with a rough, sleepy voice. „You wanna be alone?“

Nick was pretty sure he already knew the answer, and to be totally honest, he didn’t want to be alone either. He hasn’t been able to sleep anyways, his mind was too occupied thinking about the person next door and how she and him could’ve been running away together into the sunset.

Schmidt finally shook his head „no“, and while he was doing that, Nick got up and walked around the bed.

„Come here, buddy“, he said softly, while trying to unbutton Schmidt’s shirt. Which wasn’t as easy as expected with trembling hands like his. It wasn’t the first time he had to undress Schmidt after he passed out on way more alcohol than his sensitive body could handle, but it felt weird every time. Nick just couldn’t decide if it was good or bad weird.

Shoes and pants landed next to the shirt on the floor. Now only dressed in socks and underpants, which Nick refused to touch, Schmidt gathered all of his strength and rolled to one side of the bed, leaving the other one for Nick to sleep in.

Nick followed this non-verbal invitation, crawled under the soft blanked and enjoyed Schmidt’s warmth.

For a while they just laid there. Nicks heartbeat and thoughts finally calmed down and soon he was on the edge to falling asleep, when suddenly Schmidt began to move. He was lying on his side, back turned to Nick, and seemed to blindly look for something behind him with his hand. While Nick was trying to figure out what the hell his best friend was up to, Schmidt found what he has been looking for – Nicks hand.

They were holding hands now. Everything inside of Nick screamed.

„Schmidt“, he sighed, but didn’t pull away his hand. He waited a few minutes, but sleep was out of the question for now. Heat seemed to radiate from Schmidt’s skin into his and from his hand through his arm straight to his heart.

He finally pulled away his hand, smiling slightly at Schmidt’s frustrated whining. Nick pushed his upper body up to bend over his best friend.

„Schmidty“, he whispered for what was probably the fifth time tonight.

Schmidt streched, then rolled around and looked at Nick. Seconds passed.

„Uhm. So, Jess dumped me today“, Nick blurted out. It was the first thing that came to mind, but the second he started speaking he frowned and bit his bottom lip.

„What?“ Schmidt’s face wasn’t just tired, angry and sad anymore, he now also had a hint of worry in his eyes.

„Sorry, I didn’t…“ Nick mumbled. „Go back to sleep.“

With that he turned around and continued to stare at the wall for the rest of the night. At least he wanted to, but obviously Schmidt had different plans.

With one rash motion he placed one hand on Nicks neck and pulled him into a fierce kiss. It took a moment for Nick to realize what was happening, but soon he let himself go and enjoyed the feeling he had longed for years.

It felt like an eternity until Schmidt let go and Nick could pull his head away to let them both breathe. Their faces still only inches away, they stared at each other, trying to figure out what to do next.

„Schmidt…“

„Oh please, can you at least try to say something else, Nicholas?“, Schmidt chuckled nervously.

Nick cleared his throat.

„Are you sure? About this?“ he asked while still trying to catch his breath.

„What happens during a wedding night, stays in the wedding night“, Schmidt answered, before pulling Nick closer once again to sink into another deep, passionate kiss.


	2. the day after

The next morning – it was a little after 2 PM – Nick woke up with an overfilled bladder and a sharp headache, that occurred as soon as he opened his eyes. He couldn’t hold back a moan, and it was not the good kind of moan.

It took a minute to gather all his strength to get up and look at the person next to him. So it hasn’t been a dream. After years and years full of hopes and longing it had finally happened – in the most painful way he could think of.

Nick let out another small groan when he rolled out of bed, hit the floor and almost died on the spot. He struggled to get up, then tiptoed to the door, listened. It was quiet, it sounded like nobody else was even in the loft. He cracked the door open and glanced out into the living room. Nobody was there, so he sneaked out, ran through the loft and into the bathroom, where he could finally take a whizz.

“Fuck,” he mumbled shortly after, while splashing ice cold water into his face. He still couldn’t believe what had happened the night before, and every time he thought about it, that tingling sensation in his stomach (and, admittedly, a little bit more south) began to build up again.

Nick had fought with those feelings for years. They had talked about it over and over again, Schmidt making undeniably clear that nothing would ever happen between them. And last night suddenly something _did_ happen, they were fucking, both drunk, both freshly dumped by their girlfriends. At least until—

He had imagined it so many times, this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

Nick leaned into the sink, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had to get over it and act like nothing ever happened. It was a one time thing. Schmidt probably wouldn’t even want to talk about it at all.

A few minutes later, the tingle in his stomach had died down enough so that he could ignore it, Nick took another deep breath, opened his eyes and looked into the mirror. Schmidt was standing behind him.

Nick let out a very high pitched, feminine scream, jumped and turned around.

“God, I almost had a heart attack!” he began to yell, but ended the sentence whispering when the headache began to rise up again. “How long have you been standing there?!”

“Just a few minutes,” Schmidt answered.

For a moment they just stood there, doing nothing. Nick hoped to be able to avoid any further conversation about what happened, so he started moving in the direction of the door.

He was almost there when Schmidt suddenly turned around. “Nick?“ he said. Nick stopped moving, took a deep breath and turned around.

“It was _good_ though, right?“, Schmidt asked, a big smile on his face.

Nick looked at him, quietly for a moment, then finally said “No, Schmidt, it wasn’t good.“

“What?“ The look on Schmidt’s face changed from happy to shocked in mere nanoseconds.

“Don’t you remember?“ Nick waited a moment for Schmidt’s answer, but nothing came. “You had a full on anxiety attack in the middle of it, that ended the whole thing,” he explained. „I basically had to nurse you to sleep after that.“

“I believe the term ‘nursing to sleep’ doesn’t have the meaning you think it has,” Schmidt said with a concerned look in his voice.

“It felt _exactly_ like nursin‘ should feel like!“, Nick exclaimed, a little louder than he wanted to.

Schmidt shook his head, then looked around for a moment as if he had to take a trip down memory lane.

“But wait,” he finally said, “why can’t I remember any of this? In my memory there’s only the sex part, and, well, that was…“ He grinned a little.

Nick shrugged. “I don’t know, man. Maybe because you had too much to drink. You shouldn’t do that after taking your anxiety meds. Memory loss is one side effect.“

“How the hell do you even know that?“, Schmidt asked, slightly amazed by Nicks talent to be completely underestimated.

“Look, I- I googled it,” Nick began to clarify. “A few years ago, right after you started taking them, you came to the bar and got totally hammered, until you had a panic attack,” he explained. “That’s when I started reading up on that stuff and started giving you non-alcoholic drinks most of the time.“

“But you don’t trust Google,” Schmidt said, still amazed, but he also seemed a bit annoyed now.

“I feel like you focus on the wrong things here, Schmidty,” Nick answered and Schmidt nodded in agreement, then it was quiet for a moment.

“Well, I will no longer need your help,” Schmidt eventually said, or snapped, with a stern look on his face. “Stop smothering me, I can take care of myself. Good day, Sir.“

With that Schmidt moved past him and walked out of the bathroom, leaving a puzzled Nick, who once again had no clue about what he had done wrong. But it didn’t even bother him that much, because it probably meant that they would stop talking about what had happened the other night and just move on.

Because what he hasn’t told Schmidt was that it indeed had been a very good experience, before the anxiety attack of course. It would take him some time not to think about how good it all felt every time he thought about Schmidt.


	3. movie night

They went on with their lives as usual. With one minor adjustment: outside of work, Schmidt barely left his room.

He ate in there. He sometimes came out to talk to Jess or Winston, only to let them know that he was okay and alive, then vanishing again. But those two were way too busy with their own lives, Winston having a major life crisis and Jess just throwing herself into work, trying to forget _her_ thing with Nick.

Nick himself went to the park to talk to Tran. Every single day. Well, he talked – Tran just sat there and listened, just being the father figure Nick never had in his life.

After the fifth Tran-session, Nick came to an important conclusion: he had to get his hands on some alone time with Schmidt. Which wasn’t that hard, really, considering that they mostly were alone in the loft, but at the same time it was indeed hard, considering that Schmidt, well, _never_ left his room when Nick was around.

It took another week and a half until Nick finally got his opportunity. He was eating breakfast at noon, when Jess waltzed into the room, announcing that she would spend the weekend at Cece’s. He didn’t even manage to mumble a “Goodbye” before the door closed and Jess was gone.

Feeling a sense of false security, Schmidt’s bedroom door opened seconds after Jess left the loft, assuming nobody would be home now. Only wearing underpants, he walked through the room, clearly not noticing Nick sitting there, watching his every step.

Nick cleared his throat. Schmidt froze, then looked at him like a deer that was about to be hit by a car.

“Hey Schmidty,” Nick said, his voice cracking. He tried to sound casual, but he hadn’t talked to Schmidt in two weeks and was kind of nervous about his reaction here. “Jess just left. Movie night tonight?”

Schmidt gulped, thought for a moment, then asked “Is Winston home?”

“I don’t know, man,” Nick shrugged. “Haven’t seen the guy in three days.”

“Oh my god,” Schmidt said, a concerned look on his face, “should we call the cops?”

“Probably,” Nick answered. They both stared into the air for a full minute. Then Schmidt spoke again.

“Well,” he said, thinking that at least they wouldn’t have to talk while watching TV. Also, he had to start spending time with Nick again. They usually couldn’t live that long without each other. “Yeah, okay, movie night. If I get to pick the movie.”

Nick gave him a baffled look, he didn’t expect Schmidt to agree to some quality one on one time. So he just watched Schmidt walking away, back into his room, where no one would ever disturb him.

Except for Nick, six hours later, ready to start movie night. He felt exactly like on every first date he ever went to, nervous. Even though this wasn’t a first date, this was just the hundredth movie night with his best friend. He could almost taste his heartbeat.

He knocked on Schmidt’s door, who only answered after the seventh time. Schmidt opened the door with a slightly annoyed look on his face, but even Nick could tell that he was relieved to not having to spend his Saturday night in his room, alone.

“So, what are we watching?”, Nick asked, walking into the kitchen to get some alcoholic beverages, ready for some Sci-Fi action or similar.

Schmidt mumbled something, and after noticing Nick’s questioning look, he repeated “I wanna watch something cute. Disney. The Lady and the Tramp, perhaps.”

Nick froze for a second.

“The Lady in the Tramp?”, he asked, not being able to hide his amusement about that choice. “Well okay, if that’s what you want,” he said, walked to the couch and put popcorn, beer and wine on the coffee table.

Schmidt didn’t say another word, just went to the TV, started the movie, then wrapped himself in a blanket and sat down five feet away from Nick – because they are not gay.

30 seconds into the movie, Nick came to life again.

“Wait!”, he exclaimed and looked at Schmidt with a crazy look on his face. “If we watch this movie, we _have_ to eat spaghetti and meatballs.”

Schmidt looked at him with a hint of disbelief in his eyes.

“You want spaghetti and meatballs,” he asked.

“Yes, spaghetti and meatballs,” Nick repeated.

It was quiet for a few seconds.

Eventually, Schmidt sighed. “Do you want me to make you some spaghetti and meatballs, Nicholas?”

Now Nick had a huge grin on his face. He had his last homemade meal weeks ago, and Schmidt was a brilliant cook.

“Okay, but you don’t touch anything.”

As if that had to be said.

Soon, they both were in the kitchen. Nick sitting at the counter, Schmidt putting his talent to work. And they finally talked – not about anything important, but they talked.

Until Nick pulled himself together and asked the question he had asked himself hundreds of times for the past two weeks.

“Why haven’t you been talking to me?”

Schmidt seemed startled and quickly turned around to the oven, so he wouldn’t have to look Nick in the eye.

“What? I-,” he gulped, “I haven’t been avoiding you-“

“I didn’t say you avoi- have you been avoiding me?”, Nick interrupted, but quickly reminded himself that he wouldn’t get far with yelling at Schmidt.

Case in point, Schmidt didn’t say anything for a full two minutes, he just stared at the sauce, bubbling as if nothing of relevance was happening around it.

“Look,” Nick softly said after a while, “it’s just that – I’ve been racking my brain thinking about what I did wrong and how I could make it right, and – and I, I just miss you, man.”

He gulped and looked at Schmidt, who wiped a hand across his face, then finally turned around and looked at him.

“Here's the thing,” Schmidt said, this time his voice was cracking. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Really?” Nick exclaimed. “I have a hard time believing that.” A chuckle slipped out of his mouth.

“Don’t look so flabbergasted, Nicholas,” Schmidt said, now too having a little smirk on his face.

“It’s just that…”, he continued, gazing at the ceiling, looking for the words to express what he was thinking. “When we talked the other day, I realized two things. One, I probably wouldn’t even be alive anymore if it wasn’t for you--“

“True.”

“…and that scared me for a minute there. Secondly,” he cleared his throat, looking for the appropriate words once again. “Secondly, you rejected me. And it hurt and then I realized, I’ve rejected you for the past fifteen years.”

He still stared at the ceiling, a small tear rolling down his cheek. Nick didn’t know what he had expected, but it was certainly not this.

“I’ve been having an overwhelming feeling of guilt in my stomach for two weeks and it will not go away.”

Nick didn’t exactly know how to react, so he just sat there, uncomfortably straight (as straight as he could sit with his bisexual ass), going over his options in his head.

There was the hug, of course. But would that be too intimate? Just doing nothing was already weird. In case of an emergency, he could always moonwalk away from the situation, but it seemed like that wouldn’t be his best option here.

Nick looked around the room, but there was no one else who could be up for the task. In fact, there was no one.

He finally decided to go for the hug, walked over to Schmidt and awkwardly put his arms around him. He kind of expected to be pushed away and getting yelled at, but it’s Schmidt we’re talking about, of course he leaned into the hug as if his life depended on it.

After what seemed like an eternity, Schmidt finally let go of Nick to stir his wildly bubbling sauce. Nick leaned back on the counter and just watched him for a while.

Eventually he said, “I didn’t mean to reject you, Schmidt.”

Schmidt turned his head at him with a skeptical look.

“I said that it wasn’t good because you had an anxiety attack, but before that, even though we were drunk, desperate and vulnerable – it was kind of amazing.”

“What are you saying, Nicholas?”, Schmidt asked.

“Also, you were not rejecting me, either” Nick continued, ignoring Schmidt’s question for now. “There is nobody else in the whole world who loves me more than you do. And I can live with that, even though it’s not romantic or sexual.” He stopped, thinking for a moment. “You are like a dog I once adopted involuntarily and now we both can’t live without each other.”

Schmidt didn’t say anything, he just turned his back on him.

“Are you crying?”, Nick asked. “Because, you know, that would be totally, uh, cool. I would be cool with that.”

“No, I’m _not_ crying,” Schmidt snapped, wiping another tear from his cheek before he took two plates out of the cabinet and filled them with delicious smelling spaghetti and meatballs.

“Come on now,” he said with a smile on his face. “Movie night.”

It was a wonderful night. They had fun, they laughed, they told stories about what had happened to them in the past two weeks – which wasn’t much, really – and they both enjoyed it so much. The movie had ended hours ago, and usually one of them would now fall asleep on the couch, while the other one went to bed.

But today wasn’t usually.

After eating and drinking, they kind of had started to snuggle into each other. Wrapped in a warm blanket, they watched the movie, and I’m not going to lie, they _did_ cry. A lot.

But even after the movie was finished, they didn’t move back into their usual comfort zones, because even though they both didn’t want to admit it – sitting there, arms wrapped around the other person, it was in fact really comfortable.

“You know,” Schmidt said after they remained silent for some time, “this may come as a shock, but…” He stopped, nervously looking around the room.

“What?”, Nick asked, not being able to think of anything shocking Schmidt could say now.

“I wouldn’t- I wouldn’t mind having intercourse with you again.”

Nick was shocked.

“Okay, first of all,” he said, “never _ever_ say intercourse again, or I _will_ move out of the loft.”

He gulped. “And. Do you mean that? Like. We just. Smooshin’ booties?”

“I’ve warned you it might come as a shock and still you forget how to use grammar properly,” Schmidt said, shaking his head in disappointment. “And yes, I mean as in ‘smooshing booties’.”

He looked at Nick, full of fear that he put their friendship in jeopardy once again.

“I mean it still wouldn’t be romantic, so if that would be a problem I can totally understand that, it’s just that, I’ve had some time to think about it now and—”

He got interrupted by Nick suddenly pressing his lips onto his. Schmidt forgot how to breathe for a moment, but soon leaned into the kiss and enjoyed it. Nick slid his hands up Schmidt’s body to his face, putting one hand at each cheek, kissing him hungrily like a soldier returning home to his wife. After some time, Schmidt started to gently rub his crotch on Nick’s leg.

Then Nick slowly pulled away, looking each other deep into the eyes.

“So, we’re doing this, right now?”, Schmidt asked, as nervous grin on his face.

Nick glanced in the direction of Schmidt’s crotch, looking at the freshly built tent in his pants, then looked at him again.

“Oh, we’re doing this”, he said under his breath, before kissing him again. “But I don’t have a condom and my room is so far away…”

For a short moment they just looked at each other, then Nick chuckled “You can’t imagine how much I’ve always wanted to fuck your cute face.”

With that he pushed Schmidt back into the cushions and began to undress him. Schmidt tried to help, but ended up letting Nick do the work.

“You know”, Schmidt said, while Nick continued to undress himself. “What a coincidence that nobody is here over the weekend. That hasn’t happened in, like, four years.”

Nick, who was finally ready to get to it and already had his mouth opened over Schmidt’s dick, let out an annoyed groan. He got up and turned around.

“Oh, shut _up_ , Schmidt”, he said, shoving his dick down Schmidt’s throat, before bending over, ready to give him the time of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll try to update once a week :)  
> Open to feedback!


End file.
